Labelgrade Data Study · Published 2026-06-07

The Added-Sugar Hall of Fame

The sugariest packaged foods we graded — and the healthy-looking ones hiding in plain sight

We graded 356 packaged foods A–F and then ranked every one by sugar. The sugariest single serving in the catalog is Starbucks Frappuccino Mocha Chilled Coffee Drink, at 45 g — but the 25 biggest sugar hits span 18 different aisles, and 9 of them are foods that market themselves as healthy: juice, dried fruit, "protein" bars, sweetened yogurt, granola. Sorted by grams per serving and per 100 g, here is where the sugar actually hides.

Sugar is the one nutrient the front of a package works hardest to distract you from. A box says made with real fruit, a bottle says antioxidants, a wrapper says protein — and the sugar line on the back quietly does its thing. So we did the opposite of marketing: we ignored the front of every package, took the sugar figure off the USDA panel, and ranked the whole catalog by it. Two columns, because one number lies. Grams per serving is what you actually eat; grams per 100 g is the honest density that a generous or stingy "serving size" can't spin.

How we did this

Labelgrade has scored 356 branded packaged foods on the v3.1 methodology — six weighted dimensions, every figure verified against USDA FoodData Central. Of those, 350 report a sugar value on the panel, and those are the foods ranked here. For each one we read total sugars per serving and divided by the numeric serving weight to get sugar per 100 g, so a 40 g handful and a 411 g bottle can be compared on the same footing. Where USDA reports an added-sugar line we show it too. Everything on this page is computed at build time directly from the product pages — change a grade or reformulate a product and this ranking re-sorts itself. Full method at labelgrade.com/methodology.

Across the 350 foods with a sugar figure: 16 carry 20 g or more of sugar in a single serving, 34 carry 15 g or more, and 73 carry at least 10 g. USDA reports an added-sugar line for 149 of them.

The ranking: top 25 by sugar per serving

Sorted by grams of sugar in one labeled serving, worst first. The g/100 g column shows density — note how it reshuffles the order. Each product links to its full fact sheet with the USDA numbers and the complete grade breakdown. A marks foods that market themselves as healthy rather than as dessert — the surprises.

"Added" is the added-sugar figure from the USDA panel where it exists; a dash means USDA did not report one for that product (common for older entries and 100%-fruit items). Where the ingredient list names a sweetener, the underlying product page scores that sugar as added.

The surprises: sugar bombs that read "healthy"

Strip out the candy and ice cream you'd expect to top a sugar list, and what's left is the real story of this report — foods sold on a health cue that carry a dessert's worth of sugar:

• Starbucks Frappuccino Mocha Chilled Coffee Drink — 45 g sugar (10.9 g/100 g), grades C. Coffee Drinks.
• Ocean Spray Craisins Dried Cranberries — 29 g sugar (72.5 g/100 g), grades C+. Dried Fruit & Raisins.
• Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail — 28 g sugar (11.7 g/100 g), grades C. Juice.
• Core Power Banana High Protein Milk Shake — 26 g sugar (7.6 g/100 g), grades B. Protein Shake.
• Core Power Vanilla High Protein Milk Shake — 26 g sugar (7.6 g/100 g), grades B. Milk.
• Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice — 22 g sugar (9.2 g/100 g), grades B. Juice.
• Larabar Cherry Pie Fruit & Nut Bar — 20 g sugar (41.7 g/100 g), grades B. Snack & Granola Bars.
• Sun-Maid Vanilla Yogurt Raisins — 18 g sugar (60.0 g/100 g), grades D. Dried Fruit & Raisins.

The pattern is consistent. Dried fruit sweetened past what the fruit brought — Craisins and yogurt-coated raisins — is among the densest sugar in the entire catalog. A "Recover" protein bar pairs an athletic, post-workout message with sugar to rival a chocolate bar. Juice labeled a "cocktail" is closer to soda than to cranberries. Granola reads like breakfast and pours like dessert. Sweetened plant milk and flavored yogurt turn a healthy base into a sugar delivery vehicle. None of these are lying on the label — the sugar is right there on the panel — but the front of the box is pointed somewhere else.

Natural vs. added: not all of this sugar is the same

Two foods can show the same sugar number and deserve very different verdicts, so this ranking should be read with one distinction in mind.

• Intrinsic sugar is the sugar that belongs to the food. The ~22 g in a glass of 100% orange juice or the lactose in plain milk wasn't poured in by a manufacturer — it comes with the food's own water, vitamins, and (in whole fruit) fiber. That's why a B-grade juice can sit high on this list without being a junk food: the sugar is real fruit sugar, not a sweetener.
• Added sugar is corn syrup, cane sugar, or fruit-juice concentrate stirred into a product to sweeten it. Concentrate is the sneaky one — it's fruit with the water boiled off and the fiber stripped out, so "made with real fruit juice" can still mean "mostly sugar." Public-health guidance is about added sugar specifically, and that's what Labelgrade v3.1 penalizes hardest: added sugar is scored per 100 g, so a small serving can't hide a corn-syrup-dense formula.

Density makes the difference visible. Ranked by sugar per 100 g, the top of the catalog is dominated by small-serving, added-sugar foods that the per-serving view undersells: Ocean Spray Craisins Dried Cranberries (72.5 g/100 g) , Sun-Maid Vanilla Yogurt Raisins (60.0 g/100 g) , Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar (58.1 g/100 g) , Black Forest Fruit Snacks (52.2 g/100 g) , Welch's Fruit Snacks Mixed Fruit (50.0 g/100 g) , Mott's Medleys Fruit Snacks (Assorted Berry) (43.5 g/100 g) . That is the number a convenient serving size is designed to keep you from noticing.

So use this list the way a dietitian would: a high sugar figure is a flag to check the source, not an automatic verdict. Plain dairy and 100% juice earn their sugar; a corn-syrup gummy or a "recovery" bar does not. When the front of the package and the sugar line disagree about what a food is, the sugar line is telling the truth.

Methodology & data

This report is generated live from the Labelgrade catalog of 356 branded foods, 350 of which report a sugar figure. Each product is scored 0–100 on six weighted dimensions — protein density 23%, ingredient quality 21%, saturated fat 18%, sodium 15%, sugar 15%, fiber 8% — with every nutrition figure verified against USDA FoodData Central, and the load dimensions (including sugar) scored per 100 g so serving-size choices can't mask a dense nutrient. The full method is at labelgrade.com/methodology. The complete, browsable dataset — every product, every grade, every dimension — is open at labelgrade.com/data, and you can sort the whole catalog by sugar yourself in Explore.

Labelgrade is editorially independent: grades are computed from nutrition data and ingredient panels and are never influenced by affiliate relationships. We grade the product, not the brand. See our editorial standards. Found a number you think is wrong? Our corrections policy is public, and every product page shows its USDA source.

Cite this report

These findings are free to cite and reuse with attribution to Labelgrade (labelgrade.com). Journalists, dietitians, and writers covering nutrition, packaged food, or food marketing are welcome to use the ranking and the natural-vs-added framing above — please link to this page so readers can check the live data.

Source: Labelgrade Added-Sugar Hall of Fame, labelgrade.com, 2026. Data: labelgrade.com/data · Method: labelgrade.com/methodology.

For a specific cut of the data — by category, by added vs. total sugar, or a custom threshold — reach us via the contact page. This page updates automatically as the catalog grows and grades are revised; figures reflect the catalog as of the last build.